Violent protests broke out in Belfast last night as hundreds of masked protesters torched homes and vehicles following the arrest of a Sudanese migrant over a brutal knife attack.
Houses, cars, a bus and a supermarket were set alight as parts of the city descended into chaos, with some suggestions that non-white residents were deliberately targeted by some of the fires.
Northern Ireland’s First Minister, Michelle O’Neill, condemned the ‘outright thuggery’, saying that ‘groups of masked men burning families out of their homes is nothing less than disgusting cowardice’. A two-month-old baby was among those rescued.
Sir Keir Starmer has said the disorder in Belfast was ‘shocking and completely unacceptable’, adding: ‘It is clear that people were targeted last night because of their background and I will not tolerate it.’
Protesters were said to be targeting HMOs (Houses in Multiple Occupation), where multiple people live in a shared property – and which some claim are being used to house migrants at the taxpayers’ expense.
The unrest came in direct response to the horrific stabbing attack the night before, when a Sudanese migrant inflicted knife wounds to a man’s face, neck and back in a residential street.
Described by police as a 30-year-old asylum seeker who had been granted indefinite leave to remain, the suspect was last night charged with attempted murder and will appear in court court today.
But behind the unquestionably damnable violence were grave new questions over a gaping ‘backdoor to Britain’. The Sudanese suspect legally crossed from the Republic of Ireland to Northern Ireland three years ago under a long-standing arrangement which means no passport checks are conducted.
He took a bus from Dublin to Belfast and immediately claimed asylum, the authorities revealed under pressure for answers yesterday. A few months later, the Home Office granted him a five-year visa as a refugee.
There are growing calls for a review of border security measures deployed under the Common Travel Area (CTA), which allows freedom of movement between Ireland and the UK.
The victim was named locally as Stephen Ogilvie, in his 40s, who last night remained in a serious condition in hospital. It is understood he lived in the same block of social housing as the suspect.
Lendrick Street in east Belfast was engulfed in flames, with multiple cars and at least one house ablaze
Burnt-out cars and houses pictured this morning on Lendrick Street
A Glider bus on the Newtownards Road in east Belfast was one of the first targets to be set alight
The burnt-out shell of the Glider bus this morning
Hundreds of masked men defied government ministers’ calls for calm to take to the streets
A 30-year-old man described by police as a Sudanese asylum seeker granted indefinite leave to remain was charged with attempted murder and will today appear in court
Stephen Ogilvie was named locally as the victim of Monday night’s attack
Yesterday evening, long before it got dark, protesters gathered on the streets across Belfast following social media calls, ignoring police pleas for calm.
Just before 8pm, masked men dressed in black pushed burning bins up against a bus, setting it ablaze and sending thick smoke into the sky. Houses and cars were also later set alight alongside a Middle Eastern supermarket.
Footage of the chaos shows infants being carried out of neighbouring houses as flames engulf the properties.
Pastor Jack McKee, at one such scene on Crumlin Road, in the city’s north, told BBC News that residents were being hounded from their homes ‘because they’re black’.
In east Belfast, Lendrick Road was swallowed up by flames. Jamie Corry, who has lived there for 13 years, watched in horror as his house was ‘completely’ destroyed by thugs, alongside ‘sentimental’ items belonging to his late father.
‘I came out that door and I told them: ”This is my property, this is my property here,” and then they started to light the red car up,’ he said.
‘So once I saw the flames starting to get bigger and bigger, I moved away from my property, I moved down the street there and watched it all. The next minute the cars started to explode, the doors started smoking, the windows started melting, and the next thing the house was going to go up on fire.’
In the Lower Newtownards Road area, around 100 masked men made their way down the street kicking in doors and smashing windows, saying they were ‘getting the foreigners out’, the BBC reported.
It was also reported that groups of locals had set up checkpoints and were checking passing cars for foreign nationals.
The dramatic scenes began unfolding at around 8pm, soon after crowds started gathering, when protesters pushed a flaming bin into a Glider bus on the Newtownards Road, burning it to a cinder.
Police vehicles also came under attack from bricks and vandals climbing on top of them, and at least one was set on fire.
Around 20 miles outside Belfast, in County Antrim, a Turkish barber shop was attacked, with its front door and windows smashed in.
The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service said it attended 62 incidents, mainly in the Greater Belfast area.
Anti-immigrant protests also took place in several other cities around the UK on Tuesday night, including London, Glasgow, and Southampton.
A car that was burnt by rioters on Lendrick Street in the east of the city
A young man smiles at the camera in front of a burning barricade on Duncairn Gardens
A house burns in east Belfast – one of several set on fire during the course of the evening
Another shot of the road, where one of the flaming cars has been turned onto its side
Protesters attack a police vehicle on Sandy Row in Belfast
PSNI assistant chief constable Ryan Henderson warned that disorder ‘damages communities, damages local businesses and brings young people into the criminal justice system when they shouldn’t be’.
The chaos was later met with strong words from Ms O’Neill, who said: ‘This has nothing to do with community. This is outright thuggery.
‘The attack in north Belfast was heinous and wrong. But there are dangerous attempts to exploit that, to target and attack innocent people who are simply trying to live, work and raise their families here.’
She added that racism, intimidation and violence were wrong wherever it occurred.
‘There can be no excuse and no justification for these attacks tonight. No one wants to see this on our streets and I again appeal for calm,’ she said.
Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly reiterated that ‘violence does not advance any cause, it damages it’, adding: ‘Destroying things within your own community benefits no one.’
Meanwhile, Northern Ireland’s former first minister Arlene Foster said the ‘genuine fears in working class’ communities about immigration risks had been ‘overshadowed’ by the riots.
Fire crews worked into the night to subdue fires burning at several sites around the city
A masked protester prepares to throw a brick at police on York Road in North Belfast
Far-Right agitator Tommy Robinson and X owner Elon Musk urged people to take to the streets of Britain and demonstrate.
Labour chairman Anna Turley said Mr Musk and his platform had played a role in driving the violent unrest.
Northern Ireland Justice Minister Naomi Long said ‘bad-faith’ actors stoking racial tensions on social media should ‘step away from their keyboards’, adding: ‘If you weren’t interested in Northern Ireland on Sunday, you don’t need to show interest in Northern Ireland today.’
Speaking on BBC Breakfast today, Ms Long said: ‘Let us get on with the job of trying to bring calm to our streets, of trying to rebuild our community, of reassuring both people who live in North Belfast and across Belfast.’
She added: ‘We recognise in Northern Ireland that immigration is a vexed issue, and there is a conversation that we can have rationally and logically about that, but there are others who weaponize it to stir up racial tensions, to stir up division in communities.’
The horrific street stabbing on Monday night prompted calls for a review of border security measures deployed under the so-called Common Travel Area, or CTA, which encompasses the UK, Northern Ireland and the Republic.
Officers have said they did not believe the attack was related to terrorism.
Earlier, following repeated questions about the suspect’s immigration status, Police Service of Northern Ireland Chief Constable Jon Boutcher confirmed the alleged knifeman had travelled from Sudan to Paris and then on to Dublin, before taking a bus into the UK in February 2023.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: ‘The CTA means the UK relies on the Republic of Ireland to secure its border, and any weakness in the Irish border is also a weakness in ours.
‘Clearly, a lot more must be done to prevent the CTA operating as a backdoor to the UK for illegal immigrants. We need a review into border security measures in the interests of the UK and the Republic of Ireland.’
Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn said he did not know the answer to the ‘legitimate question’ of how he arrived here
Michelle O’Neill condemned the ‘outright thuggery’ on Belfast’s streets
Under the CTA, a key part of the Good Friday Agreement, there are typically no checks on travellers between the Republic and Northern Ireland, nor any on journeys to mainland Britain.
David Wood, the Home Office’s director of immigration enforcement until 2015, said: ‘The CTA has always been a weakness and on some days we used to find that there were no checks at all being conducted at Dublin airport.
‘Anyone arriving in the Republic can be in London, Manchester or wherever they want to be within a day or two.
‘The CTA is an abused route and it’s always been an abused route.’
A 2010 assessment by the UK’s Cross Border Organised Crime Group concluded that ‘Ireland can be used as a back door to gain access to the United Kingdom and vice versa’.
The following year, a report by then Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration John Vine urged the Home Office to ‘strengthen’ measures to prevent abuse of the CTA.
Northern Ireland’s Justice Minister, Naomi Long, said yesterday: ‘What we don’t want on either side of the border is to see the CTA being exploited for ill purposes.’
Home Office sources said there was no record of the suspect being in the UK before 2023. Horror unfolded at around 10.30pm on Monday night in Kinnaird Avenue, north Belfast, a majority Roman Catholic area.
Hero Matt McKiernan was armed only with a wooden stick when he led a trio of members of the public to rescue the attacker’s victim from death
Matt McKiernan (left) was armed only with a wooden stick when he led a trio of members of the public who tried to rescue the attacker’s victim from certain death
Graphic video footage filmed by witnesses and shared on social media showed a man armed with a knife pinning another man to the ground before repeatedly striking him to the face and neck.
Before police arrived, the suspect was tackled by brave passers-by, including removals firm boss Matt McKiernan, who used his son’s hurling stick to try to stop the attack, hitting the knifeman several times.
Last night he told the Daily Mail: ‘We could see what looked to be two men fighting in the street, with one on top of the other.
‘We thought we better go and break it up. [My friend] Andre was in the front passenger seat and he jumped out first.
‘But as he got closer he saw the knife. He shouted to me… to get something to help.’
The victim remained in hospital last night, where he was being treated for serious eye, face and back wounds, police said.
The Belfast Telegraph reported that witnesses fear he was blinded in the attack. The suspect was last night charged with attempted murder, possession of an article with blade or point in a public place and threats to kill.
In Northern Ireland, the authorities do not release the name of suspects before they appear in court
